Bhaskar is an MCA graduate and basically a technical guy & after completing his MCA he has worked as ASP programmer so he knows the nitty gritty of this internet domain. He saw the growth of Google very early and decided to enter in the search marketing domain and today, he is fortunate that he made his career and MavenClickZ which provides services in internet domain.

How did you get into Digital Marketing? What interested you in learning Digital Marketing?

Bhaskar: It was 2004 when Google has launched its services in full fledge and I can foresee the growth of Google in coming years and where my friend’s were emphasizing on development I was emphasizing more on search engine optimization and other search technologies and this is how I ended up in search marketing field.

What interested me is simple mathematics e.g. more and more business were coming online and we need visibility for these website and penetration of internet is growing day by day so it seemed a good opportunity to jump in this field and make a career out of it and I was fortunate that I got a chance to work Fortune 500 companies worldwide while being in this field.

According to you, what are the advantages of conventional marketing over Digital Marketing? Do you think that Digital Marketing is a threat to the future of conventional marketing?

Bhaskar: The advantage over conventional marketing is quite a few

It is 100% trackable, whether it is impression clicks or purchase we can track each and every activity of digital marketing and make an informed decision.

We can start with small budget and instant activation and see the outcome of the campaign and accordingly take it forward.

We can test our campaign ads online first and see the response of it and then go live with conventional medium.

I don’t think there is any threat to conventional medium as of now however the digital budget allocation is gonna take place in coming years for sure for Digital advertising and a combination of Digital & conventional will rule the market in coming year. Seamless integration on conventional and digital will work for advertisers.

Share about your 3 favorite Digital Marketing case studies. What did you like most about them?

According to you, what are the top 3 mistakes committed by organizations today in leveraging Digital Marketing?

Bhaskar:

Ignoring the digital marketing: They loose a huge amount of internet traffic which can be their loyal customer

Scaling the online marketing: They do just for the online sake but they forget that there are people who are searching for their services or product and ultimately scale their business

Presence on social media: Social media can be a mouth piece of their organization customer service department

Between Agency and In-house, which approach would you recommend for maximum value of Digital Marketing? Why?

Bhaskar: I believe in outsourcing the job to an agency as they are the expert and they have the hands on experience with multiple client and they keep pace with this ever changing internet domain.There are number of people who will be working on your account and implement various ideas which is not possible with one guy in house.

There are number of people who will be working on your account and implement various ideas which is not possible with one guy in house.

Which are your 3 favorite Digital Marketing Tools?

Bhaskar: When it comes to digital marketing I love following tools:

SEM Rush

Wordstream

Google Analytics

Why do you think it’s important for entrepreneurs, marketing professionals and students to learn Digital Marketing today?

Bhaskar:

For Entrepreneurs: to scale up the organization quickly in this internet arena.

For Professionals: to make a career in this ever changing market.

For Students: to keep updated with the growing internet market which has huge job potential.

What are the top 3-5 skills you look for when hiring a candidate for Digital Marketing profile?

Bhaskar: Adaptability, Collecting and Analyzing Data and Converting It Into Actionable Knowledge, Intellectual Curiosity,Comfortable With Technology,Business Acumen, Thirst for Knowledge, Bridging the Business and Technical Divide.

What is your advice for newbies, who are looking at building a career in Digital Marketing industry?

Bhaskar:

Get Hands-On Marketing Experience

Know the Lingo – (Being able to analyze marketing campaigns and understand what worked or didn’t is the key role of a digital marketer — in order to do that, you’ll need to know (and love) the industry jargon.)

Nurture Your Personal Online Presence

Dabble in Everything

Specialize in Something – (Once you have a base knowledge in each area of marketing, you’ll be better equipped to choose a more specific path of focus. Having a specialty enables you to hone your skills in that area and become an expert)

Attend Industry Meetups and Conferences

Keep a Pulse on the News

Get Technical

Perfect Your Resume

Let Curiosity and Passion Drive You

Unplug for Your Sanity (Staring at a computer screen all day long can take a toll on your body, mind and social life. Get away from that monitor and breathe for crying out loud!)

How do you stay updated on the latest trends in Digital Marketing? Which are the Digital Marketing resources (i.e. blogs/websites/apps) you visit regularly?

Bhaskar: To stay update in this industry I following site regularly:Matt Cutts Blog

Adwords Blog

Google Analytics Blog Search Engine Land Blog

Matt Cutts Blog

Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

Share the names of 3 people you respect when it comes to Digital Marketing.

Bhaskar: While comes to following people in this industry I admire following people and have a high regard for them:

Matt Cutts

Avinash Kaushik

Steve Jobs

How do you see Digital Media evolving in future? What are the top 3 trends do you foresee for 2016?

Bhaskar:

Video ads will start dominating. Video ads are certainly nothing new, with social channels like YouTube dedicated to hosting billions of videos and advertising platforms like Facebook and Bing already offering advertisers video options. 2016 is set to be different because Google is finally getting on board with in-SERP video advertising. It’s a sign that users are becoming more accepting of video ads online, and as that trend continues, expect to see more types of video ads popping up in more unexpected places. With Google’s ownership of YouTube, the possibilities are virtually limitless.

App indexing will lead to an explosion of apps. Google has offered app indexing for a while, but as the ranking possibilities for apps become more complex, 2016 will be the year more business owners realize the online visibility advantages of a dedicated app. A mobile-optimized site works wonders for appealing to the mobile crowd, but soon, apps will begin to replace them. Apps can do everything that websites can, except in more intuitive, convenient, accessible ways. We’re still several years away from apps completely replacing websites as a medium, but 2016 will be a pivotal year in app adoption from business owner’s perspectives.

Mobile will completely dominate desktop. 2015 was a big year for mobile—not only did Google announce that mobile traffic finally overtook desktop traffic in 10 different countries, it was also the year they released the “Mobilegeddon” algorithm update to phase out sites not optimized for mobile. But apparently, you don’t have to have an optimized desktop site in addition to a mobile version—according to Google, a mobile-only site with no desktop counterpart is perfectly acceptable. This alone won’t be enough to drive down desktop traffic, but it’s clear what side of the fence Google’s on; they’re banking on desktop traffic fading away, meaning the smart money rests on mobile-focused online marketing.

Would you like to share few words about the work we are doing at Digital Vidya?

Bhaskar:

I love the way Digital Vidya is nurturing the talent in online marketing domain.We have hired few of the guy’s and they are worth it. Keep up the great job Cheers.

However, hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses aren’t measuring their website conversions today. Some businesses may not have a way for users to convert on their website and others may not have the time or the technical ability to implement conversion tracking.

The Google Analytics team is committed to helping our users use their data to drive better marketing and advertising performance. So, for businesses that don’t measure conversions in AdWords today, we’ve created an easy-to-use solution: Smart Goals. Smart Goals help you identify the highest-quality visits to your website and optimize for those visits in AdWords.

“Smart Goals helped us drive more engaged visits to our website. It gave us something meaningful to optimize for in AdWords, without having to change any tags on our site. We could tell that optimizing to Smart Goals was working, because we had higher sales than usual across our channels during the testing period.” – Richard Bissell, President/Owner, Richard Bissell Fine Woodworking, Inc

How Smart Goals Work

To generate Smart Goals, we apply machine learning across thousands of websites that use Google Analytics and have opted in to share anonymized conversion data. From this information, we can distill dozens of key factors that correlate with likelihood to convert: things like session duration, pages per session, location, device and browser. We can then apply these key factors to any website. The easiest way to think about Smart Goals is that they reflect your website visits that our model indicates are most likely to lead to conversions.

Step 1: Activate Smart Goals in Google Analytics

To activate Smart Goals in Google Analytics, simply go to the “Admin” section of your Google Analytics account, click “Goals” (under the View heading) and select “Smart Goals.” The highest-quality visits to your website will now be turned into Smart Goals automatically. No additional tagging or customization is required; Smart Goals just work.

To help you see how Smart Goals perform before you activate them, we’ve built a Smart Goals report in the “Conversions” section of Google Analytics. The behavior metrics in this report indicate the engagement level of Smart Goals visits compared to other visits, helping you evaluate Smart Goals before you activate the feature.

Step 2: Import Smart Goals into AdWords

Like any other goal in Google Analytics, Smart Goals can be imported into AdWords to be used as an AdWords conversion. Once you’ve defined a conversion in AdWords, you’re able to optimize for it.

Step 3: Optimizing for Smart Goals in AdWords

One of the benefits of measuring conversions in your Adwords account is the ability to set a target cost per acquisition (CPA) as opposed to just setting a cost per click (CPC). If you aren’t measuring actual conversions today, importing Smart Goals as conversions in Adwords allows you to set a target CPA. In this way, you’re able to optimize your Adwords spend based on the likelihood of conversion as determined by our model.

Smart Goals will be rolling out over the next few weeks. To be eligible for Smart Goals, your Google Analytics property must be linked to your AdWords account(s). Learn how to link your Google Analytics property to your AdWords account(s) in the Analytics Help Center or the AdWords Help Center. Note that your Google Analytics view must receive at least 1,000 clicks from AdWords over a 30-day period to ensure the validity of your data.

Developers are constantly looking for new ways to bring users to their apps. But because people’s attention on mobile is becoming shorter and more intent-rich, finding engaged users of your app is an ongoing challenge — both before and after an install. In fact, we found that one in four installed apps is never even used. We’ve focused our efforts on offering developers advertising tools that engage users and showcase an app at its best. We recently redesigned one of our in-app ad formats, and are building on our desire to create beautiful app ad experiences. That’s why today we’re introducing two new rich, immersive ad formats to our growing suite of creative app install solutions.

Play a game within an ad with Trial Run Ads
Trial Run Ads are an app ad format that lets a user play a game for up to 60 seconds by streaming content from the app before downloading. The immersive demo increases the likelihood that an install is coming from someone who enjoys playing the game. Users get a taste of the game before going through the download process, and the app developer attracts better qualified users who’ve chosen the game based on their experiences in the app.

Trial Run Ads provide:

Ultra-immersive and delightful ads designed for games

The opportunity for gamers to trial before download

More relevant ad clicks, app downloads, and pre-qualified app users

Cookie Jam’s Trial Run Ad

Get ultra-creative with customized mobile ads
We’re also launching a beta for Interactive Interstitial ads, which are HTML5 ads that offer a completely customized user experience tailored to each advertiser’s app. They give advertisers creative freedom to use HTML5 instead of standard templates and pull in data dynamically. Diversity potential is high with this format and it’s not limited to just gaming apps. Interactive Interstitials offer a truly custom experience that can include your app’s value proposition and the functionalities you want to highlight, all painted in your personal branding strategy. This is particularly valuable for advertisers who are looking for higher user engagement in installers.

Interactive Interstitials provide:

A beautiful and flexible canvas for the advertiser to become truly creative

Unique testing and optimization capabilities

The opportunity to bring a piece of the app experience to the user before download

Unique brand building possibilities

Marketers are already taking advantage of these engaging ads to drive app installs. Zalora built a an ad that allowed users to swipe to discover an exclusive offer.

Zalora’s Interactive Interstitial allows users to use a finger to
swipe a screen to discover a special promotion.

Customization can be as big or small as you want — from adjusting standard templates to developing a fully custom creative. Marketers can also use their live app content to create compelling, real time ad formats. With more control over layout and interaction, you can A/B test creatives and try various CTAs to increase conversions. Rather than just telling a user about your app, you can offer them an experience unique to your app that inspires them to want to spend time with your app.

Advertisers can use Interactive Interstitials to showcase their latest product offerings through galleries, highlight elements of their personal branding, and to more powerfully demonstrate the value of their app before someone installs.

Zalora showcases a gallery of products that users can
swipe through in its Interactive Interstitial Ad.

We understand that experiences on mobile need to be made for mobile, and an ad is no different. We’re continually exploring new and better ways to build out interactive formats for the small screen.

Trial Run Ads and Interactive Interstitials are currently in beta and available to a limited set of advertisers. Reach out to your account manager if you are interested in joining the betas.

The online marketing industry is complex and volatile, but an exciting one for anybody who stays up on modern trends. Each year, new hardware, new software, new companies, and new user preferences dictate a host of sweeping changes that either get adopted or ignored by the businesses of the world. Early adopters get a leg up on the competition, appealing to new markets or cementing their reputations as industry leaders, while those lagging behind miss out on a key opportunity to retain their positions.

2016 looks to be a great year for online marketing, and I anticipate it shaking up the game with these seven trends:

1. Video ads will start dominating. Video ads are certainly nothing new, with social channels like YouTube dedicated to hosting billions of videos and advertising platforms like Facebook and Bing already offering advertisers video options. 2016 is set to be different because Google is finally getting on board with in-SERP video advertising. It’s a sign that users are becoming more accepting of video ads online, and as that trend continues, expect to see more types of video ads popping up in more unexpected places. With Google’s ownership of YouTube, the possibilities are virtually limitless.

2. App indexing will lead to an explosion of apps. Google has offered app indexing for a while, but as the ranking possibilities for apps become more complex, 2016 will be the year more business owners realize the online visibility advantages of a dedicated app. A mobile-optimized site works wonders for appealing to the mobile crowd, but soon, apps will begin to replace them. Apps can do everything that websites can, except in more intuitive, convenient, accessible ways. We’re still several years away from apps completely replacing websites as a medium, but 2016 will be a pivotal year in app adoption from business owner’s perspectives.

3. Mobile will completely dominate desktop. 2015 was a big year for mobile—not only did Google announce that mobile traffic finally overtook desktop traffic in 10 different countries, it was also the year they released the “Mobilegeddon” algorithm update to phase out sites not optimized for mobile. But apparently, you don’t have to have an optimized desktop site in addition to a mobile version—according to Google, a mobile-only site with no desktop counterpart is perfectly acceptable. This alone won’t be enough to drive down desktop traffic, but it’s clear what side of the fence Google’s on; they’re banking on desktop traffic fading away, meaning the smart money rests on mobile-focused online marketing.

4. Digital assistants will lead to a new kind of optimization. Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising are two highly popular strategies for getting your site seen by thousands of previously unknown visitors. But the rise of digital assistants is going to lead to a new kind of optimization. Digital assistants like Siri and Cortana do utilize traditional search engines, but only when necessary to find information. The key to optimizing in this new format is to make sure your business information is easily accessible to these assistants, rather than trying to funnel people to your site specifically.

5. Virtual reality will emerge. There are dozens of different virtual reality devices set to release in the next few years, some of which are dedicated for specific applications like video games, and others which are available for general use. Oculus Rift, arguably the most hyped VR device, is set to release in the first quarter of 2016. Oculus Rift and other VR devices will introduce an entire new medium of online advertising, with integration to popular social media platforms, video channels, and even forms of direct messaging. There’s always a chance VR could fizzle as a temporary fad, but there are billions of dollars of funding in limbo, ready to bet otherwise.

6. Wearable technology and the Internet of Things (IoT) will pave new ground. While not quite to the level of virtual reality, wearable “smart” devices should start gaining more traction into 2016. 2015 saw the unveiling of the Apple Watch, a first-generation smart watch, but more smart watches and similar wearable devices should start emerging next year. Such devices will change the landscape of local marketing, and will do more to blur the lines between “online” marketing and “real” marketing.

7. Advertising will become more expensive. Competition in the online marketing world has increased dramatically over the course of the past few years. 2016 will see it increase even more. As the basic laws of economics suggest, an increase in demand is often accompanied by an increase in price, so all those new online marketing competitors will drive the prices for online advertising even higher. Realistically, online ads are pretty cheap, but the increases in price may drive some smaller companies out of the landscape.

These seven trends aren’t the only ones that will emerge over the course of the next year, but they will be some of the most significant. There’s no guarantee exactly when or how these trends will manifest, as much of that is driven by consumer adoption, but it’s worth hedging your bets in at least a few of these tent pole technologies and strategies. The earlier you start, the more time you’ll have to adjust and reap the full benefits of your forward-thinking campaign. If you’re looking for help getting started with your online marketing campaign, grab my eBook, The Definitive Guide to Marketing Your Business Online.

Police have arrested a 43-year-old man who had set up a fake PMO website and duped more than 200 people of crores of rupees on the pretext of giving them government loans for business ventures.
Police said the accused, Sudipto Chatterjee from Howrah in West Bengal, set up a website for `Pradhan Mantri Adarsh Yojna’ which purported to be a government scheme offering loans to “hardworking“ citizens wanting to set out on their own. A 43-year-old man from Howrah, West Bengal has been arrested for duping scores of people using a fake PMO website. Sudipto Chatterjee had hired a team of 17 tele-callers to contact applicants and give them `registration numbers’, before asking them for `security deposits’ or `processing fees’, which Chatterjee would pocket.

The crime branch probed the case on complaints from the Prime Minister’s Office, which some of the victim’s had approached for clarifications regarding the status of their `loan applications’.

Ravindra Yadav, joint commissioner of police (crime) said on Sunday that a special team led by addl CP Ashok Chand and ACP K P S Malhotra had arrested Chatterjee from Howrah after carrying out extensive technical analysis. The IP address and the host details of the fake website, http:www.pmay-gov .in, was obtained which revealed that the server was based in USA.

“It became clear that it was a proxy server being used.Further probe revealed that the website was being hosted from West Bengal,“ said addl CP Chand.

A team under DCP Bhish am Singh tracked the location and laid traps in Howrah before arresting Chatterjee.

The police said 20 mobile phones, cheques of 43 accounts, dongles, hard disks and various government rubber stamps, along with other incriminating material, were seized during the raid.

Cops said Chatterjee had earlier worked in e-commerce and decided to use his experi ence in creating fake websites to cheat individuals.

He created the fake website on a US-based server to avoid being detected. The URL had the reflection of a government website and got listed on priority in Google searches.

“Whenever, an online surfer would search for projects supported by the Indian government, this website would figure in the top hits. The form and content of the website would convince visitors that it was a genuine scheme to help the youth and to promote entrepreneurship in India,“ Yadav said. Prospective victims would fill in their details online and apply for the loan.

Chatterjee had employed 17 tele-callers who would contact the clients and to give them a registration number for their application.

In 2013, marketers ran slightly more direct response campaigns than brand advertising, but now brand advertising is increasing across the digital sphere. Overall 70 per cent of marketers increased the amount of budget allocated to digital brand advertising in 2014, a 15 per cent rise from last year.

The findings were highlighted in a survey by Nielsen, in conjunction with the CMO Council.

The growth in digital brand advertising corresponds with the growth in digital advertising itself as majority of marketers reported that they planned to use online and mobile platforms more, while their planned use of offline mediums either stayed the same or decreased.

About 81 per cent of marketers planned to increase their use of social and 65 per cent of marketers planned to increase their use of digital video for their advertising campaigns. According to the report, many marketers feel that these two formats are best suited for multi-screen campaigns; accordingly both formats have grown consistently since 2012. For digital videos in particular, 49 per cent of marketers say that shifting budget from offline advertising sources have funded the increased digital video activity.

The report states, “This reinforces how advertising budgets mirror consumer behaviors—as consumers increasingly move across more screens, advertising budgets are also shifting from an isolated, channel view to a more multi-screen approach.”

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Measures deployed by the website to fight bogus reviews: team to detect fraudsters as well as algorithms

The travel advice website TripAdvisor has been fined half a million euros by an Italian regulator after complaints about fake reviews on its pages.The Italian competition authority said the company should stop “publishing misleading information about the sources of its reviews” while false reviews were still viewable on its website.

A spokesperson for TripAdvisor said it would appeal the findings, saying it believed its processes were “extremely effective in protecting consumers from the small minority of people who try to cheat our system”.

“We firmly believe that TripAdvisor is a force for good — both for consumers and the hospitality industry,” the spokesperson said.

Measures deployed by the website to fight bogus reviews include a team to detect fraudsters as well as automated tools and algorithms.

The Federalberghi Italian hoteliers association, which was involved in the initial complaint against the website, alongside the country’s national consumer’s union, welcomed the decision.

“We are happy with the decision by the antitrust authority, which goes in the right direction to offer greater protection for consumers and businesses,” the group’s director-general Alessandro Nicara said.

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In advertising, ideas are money. Then why do creatives give it all away for free and turn a blind eye to idea theft? BE asks the hard questions

Caution: The tone of this article is slightly harsh. In our defence, if you are in advertising you had it coming.Under ordinary circumstances, you empathise with a victim. Not with the Indian advertising industry, at least not this time. Why not? Because for the longest while now, agencies who claim to be problem solvers haven’t figured out how to prevent a basic issue that mars their existence: the theft of ideas at pitches.

A few weeks ago, we had an anonymous senior adman pen a much discussed column about idea theft. It’s this convenient thing clients do as agencies present their most `groundbreaking’ work. They adopt (read: steal) ideas that catch their fancy without so much as a by your leave. Some other agency gets to work on the campaign and soon Agency No 1 is staring at a YouTube video, now gone viral, that keeps clocking like after like. Leaving its staffers seething in impotent rage and the desire to scrawl `Hey, this was my idea’ in the comments thread. If this sounds distressingly familiar, look no further than the mirror while trying to find people to blame.

First, agencies don’t do their homework. All clients aren’t cut from the same righteous cloth. There are Bermuda Triangles of the marketing world, who have a reputation for idea shopping.It was something a large Indian conglomerate was frequently accused off especially given its close ties with a particular agency.But typically, such clients opt for whoever quotes the lowest. And yet, pitch after pitch, ad shops go in all guns blazing, their finest creative minds working overtime, effectively delivering their best ideas free of charge. Mostly, the idea gets mutated by the time it comes to fruition so the original agency often finds its ownership hard to prove.

To quote a few instances, the preorder strategy, a digital queue for the launch of a fast food chain in India was supposedly presented by an agency that didn’t get the account. A knit-wear brand is notorious for idea shopping. A creative head remembers writing a campaign for the Ministry of Tourism once. He didn’t win the account but one of his lines showed up in the final campaign. 8 out of 10 creative directors have been on the receiving end of this unabashed thievery of ideas.

On the other hand, there are the rare cases of magnanimous clients like VIP who compensated an agency for using a modified version of its brand name suggestion for a new line of women’s bags -Caprese.

Idea theft, like many advertising grievances, isn’t confined to India.Re m e m b e r t h e # S h a r e AC o k e campaign? A veteran adwallah told us that when the original idea (by O&M, Sydney) was adapted by another agency in a different market, the Australian network agency created a mini uproar and got compensated. Good for them if that’s what actually happened.

A n d wh at d o t h e i r I n d i a n counterparts do? Nothing. Actually, they discuss it grudgingly over a pint or few of beer. So, next to nothing would be more like it. The conversation brings about life-altering thoughts like -If the client can make us sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), why can’t we do the same?
Legally, they can. But with agencies shying away from asking for a meagre fee hike, the chances of them demanding an NDA are slim to none. With undercutting and declining margins, agencies are under so much pressure to achieve topline, they can’t afford to say no to any fresh stream of revenue or upset a marketer by bringing up the NDA. The last thing anyone wants is the reputation of being a difficult agency.

“The irony of it all is that despite being the biggest supplier of ideas, we have no command over our own product,“ laments Anil Nair, CEO and managing partner of L&K Saatchi & Saatchi. The client knows agencies are desperate for new business. If he is unscrupulous, he will take advantage of the situation. It’s a sign of a shortsighted client though, says Ajay Kakar, CMO, Aditya Birla Group financial services, to relinquish Lord Krishna for his army . We know how that panned out.Nonetheless, it’s the agency network that should boycott such clients.

So, why haven’t the doyens of this industry done anything to check these defaulters? “It’s because most of our senior leaders are on extension and they don’t give a damn about where this industry is headed,“ says Satbir Singh, managing partner and CCO of Havas Worldwide India. You have people who should’ve retired two years ago, getting paid a crore annually. Why would they risk anything? Rather why do they need to risk it for something that in most cases doesn’t even concern them?
Celebrated creatives are typically insulated from this phenomenon; it’s mainly the mid-level creative who often ends up feeling violated. Ideas are likely to build his career and the stuff histories are made of. The agency ecosystem needs to safeguard these or run the risk of losing talent to another industry (a fad plaguing advertising but that’s for another edition).

The AAAI (Advertising Agencies Association of India) says it’s working towards protecting ideas. While the call for a pitch fee went nowhere -rumour has it that agencies keen to pitch coughed up the fee themselves -in the last few years; they are looking to revisit pitch guidelines along with the ISA (Indian Society of Advertisers), shares MG Parameswaran, the association’s president and the advisor to FCB Ulka.The NDA clause will be a part of the revised guidelines, we’re told. So, when do we get this revised charter, we ask? In about three to four months, says Nagesh Alai, chairman of the legal wing. Until then, and maybe even after then, it’s open season on ideas.shephali.bhatt@timesgroup.com

The Legalese Simplified

Ideas cannot be protected under any law pertaining to intellectual property rights (IPR) Copyrights protect expression of an idea. Patents protect inventions.

But, an agency can enter into an agreement with a client whereby he’d be bound to keep information given at the time of pitching confidential.

While industries like cinema, music, photography have strong unions safeguarding the creative folks’ rights, ideas are not protected under IPR anywhere. Only its embodiment in a tangible form can be protected.

The best way forward for a creative in any field is to be wise about their sales pitch.

If you’re a lyricist, share a stanza; a musician, share a tune; a scriptwriter, share a chapter.

And if you’re an adman, show your past work to the client or sign an NDA before showing speculative work.

Digital to Represent 36% of All U.S. Ad Spending by 2019

U.S. advertisers’ spending on digital advertising will overtake TV in 2016 and hit $103 billion in 2019 to represent 36% of all ad spending, according to Forrester’s latest estimates based on its ForecastView model. U.S. advertisers will spend $85.8 billion on TV ads in 2019, which will equal 30% of overall ad spending that year, according to Forrester.

But digital won’t usurp TV because of big brand advertisers taking their commercial money and redirecting it toward YouTube and Facebook. There will be some cannibalization of TV budgets, but the bigger contributing factor will be an influx of new money dedicated to digital because marketers are able to prove that digital works, said Forrester analyst Shar VanBoskirk.

Marketers aren’t upping their digital budgets because of bright shiny objects like so-called native ads or computer-automated programmatic buying processes. They’re doing so because the economy has recovered. Advertisers have more money to spend now than in recent years and the oversupply of ad inventory online gives them a lot of places to put that money. And they’re comfortable spending their money online because years of testing and learning has shown those digital dollars are well spent.

“We’ve landed at a more mature state with digital than we were even in our last forecast where people were still wildly experimental. Now for the same reason [marketers] have proven data to grow their budgets, they also have proven data to not overspend,” Ms. VanBoskirk said.

There will still be experimentation, but it will be more measured. For example, more experienced digital marketers will move around their online budgets. They are beginning to cap their proven search budgets and put any additional money to digital’s emerging areas like mobile and inventory that can be bought programmatically, Ms. VanBoskirk said. And new-to-digital advertisers, like b-to-b brands, are limiting their money initially to more cost-efficient channels like search.

As a result of the care marketers will take with their digital budgets, Forrester expects the overall growth in digital ad spending will start to slow slightly.

The ability to measure digital ads’ effectiveness is why the hierarchy of digital ad channels won’t change in the next five years, even with an increase in mobile ad spending. Forrester expects advertisers to spend $46 billion on mobile ads in 2019, but spread that amount among digital’s umbrella channels so that a mobile banner buy counts as display, for example. Mobile will drive 66% of the growth in digital ad spending over the next five years, but those smaller-screen dollars will be largely going to the same digital channels as desktop dollars.

Search still king
Search advertising will remain the biggest benefactor because advertisers are able to measure its benefits most directly. Display advertising, which includes digital video ads, will follow close behind because it appeals to brand advertisers. Spending on social advertising, like Facebook’s and Twitter’s in-stream ads, will grow more than any other digital channel over the next five years, but Forrester doesn’t see it overtaking search or display in that span because social ad measurement still has to mature.

“Marketers are deliberately choosing tools that are more measurable [than social], that they have more experience with and that have a more obvious direct-response value. And they’re still trying to get to the place where they can measure how social media is going to pay off for them,” Ms. VanBoskirk said. Conversely email marketing is considered more measurable than social and “the workhorse of most marketers’ toolkits,” she added, but is so cheap that “it is never going to be the lion’s share of a budget.”

While digital ad spending surpassing $100 billion would be a milestone, the mark could have been bigger if it weren’t for the category cannibalizing itself. Brands will be putting more money toward digital advertising, but they’ll also be shelling out to create content, a cost that Forrester does not include in its estimates. And some brands will find a way to hang on to their money by distributing that content for free on digital channels like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as well as on the brands’ own properties.

“This is a $100 billion forecast, not a $150 billion forecast, because companies are starting to realize that paid media is not always the best investment for the comprehensive customer experiences they want to create,” Ms. VanBoskirk said.